12G EDIBLE FISHES. 



92. Smelt. 



This delicate little fish, which belongs to the true Salmotiidce, was 

 fii-st described by Richardson, from specimens which were obtained at 

 the Bay of Islands with a net, and therefore I infer in the salt water, 

 but it is at certain seasons one of the most common of our fresh water 

 fishes. In my paper on the New Zealand Salmonoids, I distingiiished 

 two species of the Smelt, the Inanga and the proper Smelt, which have 

 been again united by Captain Hutton under the original species Retro- 

 pinna Riclmrdsoni. I am still, however, inclined to maintain that 

 R. osmeroides should be recognised as a distinct form until more definite 

 proof can be adduced that it is merely a different stage in the growth 

 of the first descriljed species. My first acquaintance with these fish was 

 in 1863, at the moiith of the Kadvika River, on the west coast of Otago, 

 where in the month of September both kinds were obtained, the larger 

 vax'iety [R. osmeroides) following the flood-tide in numerous shoals into 

 all the little streams to which the brackish water penetrated, leaping 

 out of the water in a very lively fashion — the Maoris catching them as 

 the tide fell by closing weirs made of flax net across the small creeks. 

 Their length was froni 4 to 7 inches, and they took bait voraciously. 

 The smaller fish {R. RicJiardso7ii) averaging 2 inches in length, on the other 

 hand, chiefly appeared round the sides of the vessel in swarms at ebb-tide, 

 when the water was quite fresh, and were caught with bag nets. Later in 

 the season, during the month of November, the same fish was found in 

 quantities in the Kakapo Lake, where the water is always quite fresh, but 

 along with the smaller ones were many of larger size, averaging 4 inches 

 in length, and having the appearance of adult fish, without showing any 

 of the characters of the larger form. In the Blackwater, which is a 

 tribiitary of the Buller River, 20 miles from the sea, I am informed 

 that a fish which answers to R. Osmeroides is abundant from February 

 till June, and is caught in large quantities with a net at night-fall, biit 

 that the smaller fish, which was described to me as the Whitebait with 

 a silver line on the sides, arrives in October in closely packed shoals 

 that advance steadily u))strcam against the rapids. Captain Hutton 

 states that in the Waikato these fish go down to the sea to spawn in 

 April, and that the young fish return again in October, but among the 

 specimens he collected both forms can be distinguished, although some 

 specimens of each are of equal size. In a collection of fishes obtained 

 from Taupo Lake I also find a small sized form of the Smelt, which. 



